The girls and I spent much of the day helping a sick pup get to the vet. This involved a drive to the emergency clinic, across the bridge in Poulsbo. But I was happy to help. I had set aside today for resting and catching up. So I had time.
Although our day took a detour – as we munched handfuls of pretzels and cheese sticks for lunch at a park, while waiting for Sick Pup to finish his tests at the vet – I felt relaxed and calm.
Often when someone gets sick or something breaks, I get crabby and cranky. I feel as if my day is ruined. Everything gets stopped, backed up, like a pipe that’s clogged. It’s a mess. But today was different. Today I had the time to give.
One financial planner, whose books Ted and I have read, recommended budgeting some money each month into savings as an emergency fund towards buying another car: that way, when the current car does break down, there’s savings in the bank waiting to help buy the next one. Practicing this discipline is a wise way to prepare for the uncertainties of the future.
I only wish I could budget time in the same way. If only I could take some time out of each day to be put into savings and then take it out whenever an emergency occurred. How that fantasy would help me in a crisis! Time may be money but you can’t put it in the bank, save it or borrow it against the clock.
What I could do though, I realized today, would be to budget some emergency space. I could take some time each day and put it aside for whatever little crisis or emergency occurs rather than scheduling the kids and myself tight as I can sometimes, running us up against the routine, going from here to there without much to spare. I think that physicians do this budgeting as they plan their day: my impression from making appointments is that some slots of the day are saved for emergencies, patients in crisis, while other slots are given for scheduled check-ups and routine visits. Budgeting my time to include possible emergencies on a daily and weekly basis, giving us time to rest as I did today, would be wise and valuable, worth more, perhaps, than money in the bank.
